YouTube election fraud conspiracy theories fuel impeached South Korean president and his supporters

SEOUL, South Korea — Thousands have braved the frigid January weather in Seoul protests, waving South Korean and American flags and shouting vows to protect their embattled conservative hero, the impeached South Korean president facing imprisonment over potential rebellion charges.

The swelling crowds in South Korea's capital are inspired by President Yoon Suk Yeol's defiance, but also by the growing power of right-wing YouTubers who portray Yoon as a victim of a leftist, North Korea-sympathizing opposition that has rigged elections to gain a legislative majority and is now plotting to remove a patriotic leader.

''Out with fraudulent elections and a fake National Assembly!'' read one sign, brandished by an angry man in a fur hat during a recent protest near Yoon's presidential residence, the site of a massive law enforcement operation Wednesday that made Yoon the country's first sitting president to be detained in a criminal investigation.

Many at the pro-Yoon rallies, which are separated by police from anti-Yoon counter-protests, are significantly influenced by fictional narratives about election fraud that dominate conservative YouTube channels — claims that Yoon has repeatedly referenced in his attacks on election officials.

A placard hanging from an overpass read: ''Martial law was declared to investigate election fraud; lawmakers impeached (Yoon) to stop it.'' There were also ''Stop the Steal'' signs, a slogan associated with the U.S. Capitol attack by a mob of Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, who were angry over false claims that Joe Biden had stolen the election.

There have long been worries about Yoon's close ties with right-wing YouTube personalities, some of whom were invited to his inauguration ceremony. One has even boasted that Yoon listens to his show ''even while sleeping.''

Those worries, however, have been heightened since Yoon's shocking martial law declaration on Dec. 3, which led to the dispatch of hundreds of troops to encircle the legislature and the country's election commission — and which dredged up memories of military-backed dictatorships that ended in the 1980s.

The opposition-dominated National Assembly voted to impeach Yoon on Dec. 14, suspending his powers and putting his fate with the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether to formally remove him from office or reinstate him.

But the ensuing weeks of political paralysis have laid bare the nation's stark ideological divide and revealed the growing popularity of bizarre conspiracy theories that are now being amplified by mainstream conservative politicians, starting with the president himself.

In a message posted on his Facebook account following his detainment Wednesday, Yoon claimed that there's ''so much evidence of election fraud in our country.'' It's the latest of his erroneous claims meant to discredit the country's election process while defending his martial law decree.

Observers worry it might undermine future elections.

Reality shattered by martial law

Kim Min-jeon, a member of PPP's leadership council, went on YouTube to defend the president's decision to send troops to National Election Commission sites, saying that election integrity worries made ''war-like emergency'' steps necessary.

It's unclear whether Yoon and his loyalists genuinely believe the claims of rigged elections or are leveraging conspiracy theories to justify his imposition of martial law and rally his support base. It's also unclear whether those voicing the theories at protests represent mainstream conservative voters.

Conservatives, however, have been emboldened by recent polls, which show that Yoon and his party's approval ratings have risen since the martial law imposition.

The recent precedent of politicians undermining reality for their own personal gains threatens democracy because it adds false claims to already intense policy disagreements that make compromise unlikely, said Jinman Cho, a politics professor at Duksung Women's University in Seoul.

''Parties are using conspiracy theories not to attack each other but to destroy each other,'' said Cho, who predicts that chaos will persist until Yoon's political fate is determined in court.

Metal bats, cable ties and ropes

On the night of Dec. 3, as TV showed heavily armed soldiers backed by Blackhawk helicopters and armored vehicles swarming the National Assembly, a separate military operation, also involving hundreds of troops, was quietly underway at the headquarters of the National Election Commission in Gwacheon and two other NEC facilities.

According to prosecutors' indictment of Kim Yong Hyun, Yoon's now-arrested former defense minister, a search-and-seize squad was meant to arrest 30 NEC officials and find evidence of election fraud, a claim that remains unsubstantiated in South Korea. The soldiers were equipped with metal baseball bats, cable ties, ropes, blindfolds and head covers.

Other soldiers were instructed to copy data from NEC's computer servers and, ''if difficult, just remove the servers themselves,'' according to the 83-page indictment obtained by The Associated Press. The plans weren't carried out because lawmakers first forced Yoon to lift martial law.

Kim's indictment says Yoon began floating the idea of using his emergency powers around late March or early April, shortly before the general elections, in which the liberals won by a landslide to extend their legislative majority.

He referenced a debunked YouTube claim that NEC's status as an independent electoral body meant it could not be subjected to searches and seizures by law enforcement investigators.

When Seoul's spy agency examined government networks for possible North Korean cybertheft in 2023, it found no signs of NEC computer breaches. Even if hackers somehow gain access, rigging an election would still be virtually impossible, officials say, as it would require overriding the entire election management system, tampering with physical ballots and collusion among thousands of election workers.

''Every single allegation of election fraud raised during past elections was concluded as groundless in courts,'' the NEC said in a statement.

Yoon Kab-keun, one of the president's lawyers, said Yoon Suk Yeol was determined to ''resolve suspicions and inadequacies'' linked to the NEC's operations.

Some PPP lawmakers who met Yoon at his residence before his detention told reporters that the president urged the party to win future elections by embracing the voices of protesters, and to focus on the ''well-organized information on YouTube'' rather than the ''biased'' legacy media.